The following is from Elaine Castillo's novel, America Is Not the Heart. Leaving behind political upheaval in the Philippines, Hero De Vera starts over in San Francisco Bay Area, working as a nanny for her uncle. While her aunt and uncle would rather not discuss Hero's dark past, her niece can't help but ask. Elaine Castillo is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley. America Is Not the Heart is her first novel.

It’lltakeyoualongtimetotalkaboutmartiallaw,andyou’llnever talkaboutitwithanyonewholivedthroughitwithyou.Butfor now, you don’t go to the rallies, you don’t join thestudentprotests; yougosilentorchangethesubjectwhensomeoneatyourtablein the canteen brings it up. The fear in you predates Marcos,predates dictatorships—atleast,theonesthatcomeintheshapeofasingle person.Noonewouldevermistakeyouforanintellectualoran aktibista;mostofthetime,youdon’tevenreallyunderstandwhat peoplearesayingwhentheytalkaboutthenews.Readingwritten Tagaloghasalwaysbeendifficultforyou,eventhoughyou’vegotten moreorlessfluentwitheverydayspeech.Butthingslikeoldkundimanfromthethirtiesandfortieswherehalfthewordsforloveare wordsyou’veneverheardinyourlife,orthecomplicateddialogueinsome new movie where all the characters except for theyayacome fromManila,thingslikenewspapers—theystillsendyouintodizzy spells. So you stay away.

But there’s no staying away from this: dread’s in every pore, everybreath,everyblink.Martiallawmeanscurfewatnineo’clock, it means streets empty except for military jeeps, it means classes that once had fifty pupils are now classes that have forty-eight, maybe forty-six. Youand your other nursing student friends at the UniversityofPangasinanstaytogetherthroughitall,eatingallyour meals together in the canteen even though some girls havetakento eating alone in their dorm rooms, sometimes playing musicifthey havearecordplayer,Bread’s“MakeItwithYou”crooningalltheway downthedormcorridor.Inthecanteen,therearesomegirlswho just start weeping into their plates, right there in frontofeveryone; maybe because one of their relatives hasbeen taken, maybe justfrom thefearalone,stretchingallofyouwire-taut.Sometimesyou’reoneof the weeping girls—but you never weep in public; you doitonly inyourownbed,facesmashedintothepillowsothetearsabsorb rightbackintotheskin,thepuffinessofyourfaceinthemorning theonlysignofyourlabors.Nooneknowsifyou’llevengraduate,if therewillevenbeauniversityleftwhenthisisallover,ifit’lleverbe over.Then,ayearintomartiallaw,youhearaboutyourcousinTato.You and Tato both attend UP but you rarely see eachother;the lastyouheardhewasstudyingpoliticalscienceorlaw.It’syour motherwhotellsyouthatoneevening,whenhe’dcomebackto Mangaldantovisithisparentsfortheweekend,Tatodisappeared. AuntieBobettehadbeenoutsidewithabasketofkangkong,pluckingthe leaves off the long stems, planning to make monggofordinner once Tato was back from drinking with his friends. By thetimethe foodhadlonggonecold,bythetimetheywereeatingitsleftovers forbreakfastandthenlunch,Tatostillhadn’tcomeback.Aweek later,Uncle David disappeared, too. That was how AuntieBobette knew Tato hadn’t just gone underground with theaktibistafriends he’dmadeatschool,thatlessermaternalgriefoftheperiod.Ifher husband was gone, too, something else must have happened.

Your mother tells you that a few months later, men from the militarycametoAuntieBobette’shouseinMangaldan,parkingtheir jeeps in the dika grass and frightening the goats into bleating. They knocked on the door, and when she opened it, they said they were theretoinformherthattheywerewillingtopayherforthedeath of her husband, as befitting the surviving family of a deceased military officer.

Auntie Bobette didn’t ask what they meant, didn’t ask why they wereofferingtocompensateadeathnoonehadevenconfirmedyet. She only said, And what about my son, Tato.

Article continues after advertisement

Theydidn’tacknowledgeherwords,orevenflinchatTato’sname, only repeating that they were willing to pay for the death of her husband. They spoke as if reciting a speech they had memorized. Bobettesaid,inPangasinan,replyingtoananswertheyhadn’tgiven: So they’re bothdead.

Shedirectedherwordsatthesoldierwhohadbeendoingmostof thetalking,aPangasinensecommandingofficernotthatmucholder than Bobette. He’d probably known her husband well, drunk Diplomatico rum with him at the carinderia down the street; they’d lit eachother’scigarettes,judgedthebeautyofeachother’smistresses. OnceagaintheofficersaidtoAuntieBobette,notinPangasinanbut in a mixture of Tagalog and English: We are ready to compensate you, as a military widow, for the death of yourhusband.

“But there’s no staying away from this: dread’s in every pore, everybreath,everyblink.”

Article continues after advertisement

And Auntie Bobette replied, with the blazing calm of a seraph:I don’t want money. If you’re saying they’re dead, then you give me thebodies.

Whenyourmothertoldyouthisstory,youwereterrifiedofthe nextpart—ofwhatmighthavehappenedtoAuntieBobette,atthe mercyoffourorfivesoldiers.Youthoughtmaybeyourmother,who hadneverbeeninthehabitofcallingyouregularlyatschooland had never even visited your dorms, was about to tell you of one more death. But instead your mother told you that the frustrated officersjustturnedaround,gotbackintheirjeeps,andleft.Nothing else.Foryears,AuntieBobettewaitedforonemoreknockonthe door,forittobeherhusband’sorherson’sfaceshefinallyopened to,eithergauntandgulpingatlife,orbloatedandraggedindeath, leftatherfrontdoorasafinalcourtesy.Orforittobethemilitary again, come to extinguish the last of the last flames. But it never came; it never was.

A month or so after you hear about Tato from your mother, you meet Auntie Bobette on campus, after she’s done finally collecting Tato’s things from his former dorm mates, who’d kept his belongings safe even when the school had already given away his room to new students. You ask how she is, sounding inane even to yourself, but you can’t find the words to speak about Tato or Uncle David. Auntie Bobette seems to understand that, because she only shifts the weight of the bulging duffel bag she’s carrying, full of herson’s clothes, books. She refuses when you offer to carry the bag,refuses whenyouoffertoaccompanyhertothebusdepot.Shejusttouches your arm and says, Asicasom so laman mo.

AllofyourclassesatschoolaretaughtinEnglish,andeventhough most of your friends at UP are Pangasinense like you, most of the timeyouallendupspeakingtoeachotherinsomemixtureofTagalog and English, imitating the poppy Taglish of teleseryes andradio programs. So you can’t remember the last time someone told you to take care of yourself in your ownlanguage.

Whenyourmothertoldyouthestory,shenevertolditinaway that made it clear whether or not Tato and his father were dead. Sheknew,anddidn’tknow.Youdidn’task.Youknew,anddidn’t know,too.

*

ShortlyafterTatodisappears,you’llmeetthemanwho’llbecome your husband and the father of your first and onlydaughter,the manwhoseancestralfamilyhomestandsatthecenterofVigan,upnorthinIlocosSur,oneoftheoldcolonialhomesthatused tobelongtoSpanishofficialsorChinesemerchants;hisfamily descends from both, but mostly from the latter. He’sanorthopedic surgeon,andheteachesandpracticesatNazarethHospital,thefirstplaceyouworkasastudentnurse.Peoplesaythathe’sonly recently come back to the Philippines after having lived in Jakarta for ten years.

It’s hate at first sight. He’s one of these mayaman jet-setters who’vebeenallovertheworldandwhospeaktheEnglishofcommercialsandforeignmovies,theEnglishofAsiankingsplayedby whiteactors.Eventhesilencearoundhimisregal;youcan’tstand that silence. People say that he’s recently divorced, that hefound hisfirstwife,thecousinofMarcos,inbedwithanotherman.Yousee himsometimesonhisrounds,andhehasadifferentnursehanging onhisarmeveryafternoon,adifferentgirlinthepassengerseatof hisdarkorangeFiateveryevening.He’sanotoriousbabaero,the Don Juan of the hospital, and most of the nurses flutter when he somuchasenterstheroom.Yethisreputationneverveerstoward thesordid.This,youdiscover,islessbecauseofhiswealthandthe weightofhisname,andmorebecauseofthefactthateverywoman whosleepswithhimagreesthathe’sachampionateatingwomen out.ThisiswhatdifferentiatesDoctorDeVerafromyourrun-of-the-millbabaero,theysay.Themanlovestomakewomencome. Hedoesn’tjustrabbit-rabbit-rabbitandthentaposna,theygiggle toeachother,whileyoujabastrawintoaCokebottle.

One day you’re assigned to do your rounds with him as a supervisor. He looks you up and down and you know that if you let this happen, you’ll be next.

You’re not going to let it happen. You’re going to get the rounds over with, even with your skin gone all strange and prickly, the tiniest hairs on your body alive, alight. In the middle of the rounds, you realize that in your haste to finish you’ve advanced several steps ahead of him. You turn around. He’s paused in the middle of the corridor, looking at you, amused.

You walk very fast, he says. He says it in English.

You flush. Standing there smiling, you think he looks like a darker-skinnedRogeliodelaRosa,pomadedhairandall,andbefore you keep on thinking up stupid things like that, you turn awayfrom him,fast.Butit’stoolate.He’sseenyourface;heknowshe’smade you blush. Now you definitely have to avoidhim.

But he doesn’t chase you, the way you think he will, the way you expect men like him to. He’s just—present. He’s around with all the answers when you need advice about a patient’s sepsis, he’s opening the entrance door to the hospital for you in the morning when you’re yawningandtoounguardedtoremembernottothankhim,he’sinthe break room debating favorite desserts with other nurses when you’ve slippedinlookingforaplacetotakeanap.What’syourfavorite,he’s asking Evelyn, a young nurse. She replies, Brazo deMercedes.

Brazo de Evelyn, he quips, and she titters, along with two other nursesnearby,hangingaroundtheedgesoftheflirtationinthehope of getting in on itthemselves.

You roll your eyes and turn around to leave. Pacita, he calls.

What’s your favorite dessert?

You think about ignoring him, the way you should have ignored him when he opened the door that morning, the way you should have ignored him when he made the comment about how fast you walked. You didn’t even realize at the time that he must have liked itbecausehe’dgottenthechancetostareatyourwigglingass.Only later did you think about it, in bed, hot all over with fury andsomething that wasn’t fury.

You should ignore him, but instead, you turn around and declare,in a voice so hard it sounds like you’re delivering an insult: Tupig. One of the other nurses, Floribeth, starts laughing. Native cakes pala! she says. You can buy that on the side of the road anywhere.

Years later, when you’re married, he’ll tell you that tupig was the favorite dessert of both his older brother Melchior and his late mother.Whentheydon’tsellitatthesmallFilipinogrocerystorein theCaliforniatownyou’llliveintogether,you’lltrytolearnhowto make it without ever telling him—and then, when all your attempts turn out disastrously, you’ll give up, also without ever telling him. But you don’t know any of that yet. So right now, you just finish turning around and leaving.

“You’ve beenforeignallyourlife.Whenyoufinallyleave,allyou’rehoping for is a more bearable kind offoreignness.”

Still, no matter how much you try to avoid Doctor De Vera—in your head, you address him only as the babaero; it helps you to distanceyourself—he’severywhere.Andmaybeit’sjustyourimagination,butitfeelslikehe’slookingbackatyou,too.Evenwhenhe’s meeting another date in front of the hospital—a young woman who everyone whispers is the daughter of some CEO, of some company you’veneverheardof—it’syouthathe’slookingbackat,asheslips into the driver’s seat. It annoys you, because you see through it; it annoysyou,becauseyou’remeanttoseethroughit.He’snothiding the fact that he’s looking at you, and he’s not hiding the fact that he sees you lookingback.

The fact that he’s a babaero isn’t really the problem. It’s not just the celebrity, or that his first wife was Marcos’s cousin, or that he’s a De Vera of the De Veras of Vigan, or that he’s a champion at, at, at—cunnilingus. The problem starts with the fact that he’s good at what he does. If reports are to be believed, he’s the best orthopedic surgeonontheislandofLuzon.You’veassistedhimintheoperating room more than once, and while he never loses the louche grace in his limbs—he and his anesthesiologist are known for singing kundiman during their procedures, so that you’ve become used to the sound of someone belting out Dahil Sa Iyo beneath the deafening keen of a saw juddering through a femur—there’s an expression on his face, a posture in his body, which you only ever see there. In thatspace.Eachgesturehasacalm,deliberateeconomy,sothat even the air pressure around him seems to change, like someone descending into a mine shaft. No, it’s not calm; it’s self-possession. Even in a cavern, he owns himself. So that’s what it looks like.

Thepartthatreallygetstoyou,thepartthatgetstoyourquietest of parts, is the part about polio: you learn that hisspecialtyis childrenwithpolio,thatthiswaswhathewasdoinginIndonesia, openingrehabilitationclinicsinruralareas.Itwasbecomingless commonasyouweregrowingup,butyoustillremembersomekids withpolioaroundMangaldanandMapandan,amongthefamilies living even farther out into the rice fields, past thebangusfarms. Still,still,still—you’renotgoingtoletyourselfbeseducedbyhim, by the myths that cling to his shoulders: cosmopolitanDonJuan, pussy-eaterextraordinaire,saviorofchildren—it’sallsoridiculous. Itisridiculous,butnotforreasonsyouknowyet.Youdon’tknowyetabouthisbrother,abouthismother,aboutthebelovednieceof his,alsonamedafterhismother,whojoinedtheNewPeople’sArmy incollegeandwhohelongassumedwasdead;youdon’tknowthat he’sgoingtoasktonameyourfirstchildtogetherafterthatniece; youdon’tknowthatyou’regoingtosayyestheminuteyouseethe wreckedlookonhisfacewhenheasks;youdon’tknowthatwhen yourdaughterisaroundfiveyearsoldhe’sgoingtolearnthatthis nieceisstillalive,thatshe’ssurvivedtwoyearsinaprisoncamp, thatsheneedshelp,money,andmostofallaplacetolive;youdon’t knowyetthatthisplacewillbeyourhomeinCalifornia.Mostof all,youdon’tknowyetthathe’llbeutterlyundonebyhisownlife, that he’ll lose everything he has now, that no one whoflirtswith him and courts his favor in this era will remember himintwenty years,thatnoteventheauraaroundhisnamewillsurviveexcept asasourceoffatiguedpride,passeddowntoyourdaughter,who won’tfullygraspthecontextortheimportanceofthatnamewhen shesaysshe’sproudtobeaDeVera,parrotinghiswordswithout knowingtheirmeaning.Youdon’tknowyetthatwhenhe’sanold man, marbled with lymphoma, one night while you’re asleep next tohimhe’sgoingtoremovetheoxygenmaskkeepinghimalive,and that afterward, instead of burning his body and scattering the ashes over the rice fields in Ilocos Sur as per his final wishes, you’ll put him in a box in Northern California, ten minutes from theveterans’ hospital where you’ll work sixteen-hour days, so at least you can visit his grave on your lunch break. You tell his ghost, I can’t go to Ilocos Sur on my lunch break.

You don’t know yet that you’re going to love him, and that you won’t be able to differentiate this love for him from yourdevouring hunger to be recognized. It’s not that you’re imagining that he’d whiskyouawaytohismansioninDagupanCityorViganorManila and you’d live happily ever after. You’ve got a happily-ever-afterin mind,anditdoesn’thaveanythingtodowithbeinganybody’snobya. Forthatmatter,itdoesn’thaveanythingtodowithDagupanCityor ViganorManilaatall,oranywhereelseinthiscountry.Youalready know that the first thing that makes you foreign to a place is to be born poor in it; you don’t need to emigrate to America to feel what you already felt when you were ten, looking up at the rickety concreteroofaboveyourheadandknowingthatonemorebadtyphoon would bring it down to crush your bones and the bones of all your siblings sleeping next to you; or selling fruit by the side of the road while people had their drivers idle their cars to buy a couple of mangoesfromyou,makingsurenevertoreallylookatyou,making sure not to touch your hand when they put the money in it. You’ve beenforeignallyourlife.Whenyoufinallyleave,allyou’rehoping for is a more bearable kind offoreignness.

Butwhileyou’restillhere,warmingyourselfintheglowofsomeone like the babaero, you’re just. Curious. You just want to know whatit’sliketobewantedbysomeonelikethat.Mostofall,youwant toknowwhatit’sliketogetit,andnotneedit.Mostofthetime,you needthingsyouneverget;yougetthingsnoonewouldeverwant.

Butgettingsomethingyouwant,thatyoudon’treallyneed?Getting somethingthat’sjustaboutfeedingthathalf-sewn-upsecondmouth inside you, unfed and lonely, cramped somewhere between your heartandyourgut?You’veneverhadthatbefore.You’veneverhad it, but you want to feel worthy of it, like the woman in the hair-dye ad you’ve been seeing around recently. You want to feel like it’s because you’re worthit.

Ifyouhadagirlfriendwhowastellingyouthisstory,you’dcluck your tongue, tell her to throw the guy into the trash. You’d tell her to forget his name, to practice her English and pack her bags. But it’s not a girlfriend telling you thisstory.